After being out of guild wars for a really long time, I wanted to get back into and roll a primary damage dealer. But I've seen so many posts about elementalists being useless in HMs and such as primary damage dealers.

Is there a reason to play an elementalist if you want a primary damage dealer? Or should I just roll a warrior for that?

elementalists are good damage dealers in HM now. For a pure damage-dealing role, I prefer eles (though rits/necros/mesmers usually win out on my hero team due to their abilities to both do damage and have good support).

No. Eles are still mediocre for damage roles. Give them support skills instead.

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Originally Posted by Zenzai

The Elementalist went through some changes and so has HM.

It made elemental and armour ignoring damage more balanced, but pure damage is certainly not as good as high damage with utility (rupts, enchant removals, fast recharges, etc) There's still natural resistance to consider in EoTN (Destroyers, mainly)

The way I see it, most classes can currently be called top tier for hero and henchmen play. Note that the reason I spesify "Hero and henchmen" play is because it implies building a team where the character would work. As opposed to having builds that work great regardless of the team build.

Ranger, Warrior, Dervish and Assassin are all top tier physicals, and I concider them to be so well balanced that I'm incapable of pointing out which is best. They all have their own strengths and weaknesses.

Mesmers, Elementalists and Necromancers are top tier casters, all of them in their own way. With their own strengths and weaknesses. And with multiple different builds available to them. But the ones I concider to be the most efficient with hero teams is AP callers so I'll be speaking from that perspective.

Necromancers have the easiest energy management, but when stuff dies fast it can get overloaded and skip out on gains when you need them. They pack a huge "Nearby" AoE, but it's conditional and damage is only delivered when the foe actually dies, so they are vulnerable to prots and slow kills in general. And they have easy access to cover hexes.

Mesmers have easy access to armor ignoring damage, helping trigger AP in the first place. They have an active energy management and great utility in the form of being able to bring double EVAS and pain inverter in AP caller builds. But their energy management gets strained in longer fights.

Elemetalists have a huge energy pool, easy energy management, big AOE's and damage on demand. But elemental damage is still affected by armor, and they don't have easy access to cover hexes and casts are often slow. Meaning their performance varies the most from beeing great vs one group to mediocre vs the next.

That's not just counting damage, but utility and support. Ele heroes are OK, but everything they can do, Mesmers can do better, generally with less skills and more proactive damage prevention.

All in all, an ele can only really burn foes more effectively, but burning condition is wank. Searing Flames sucks, EA is just a cspace build with not a lot going for it (as a human; as a hero you can slot the odd utility shout or prot) AP Eles are as good as they always were for 7h, and it's about the only decent option *STILL*. Then you have ER prot, which is no damage at all.

Even if elementalists did have the most damage, they still need to devote one slot to energy management (Attunement/Assassin's Promise/Mind blast/Ether Renewal/Master of Magic/Ether Prism/etc.), two if using an energy intensive build such as Searing Flames (Attunement + Glowing Ice/Glowing Gaze/Shock arrow or Attunement+glyph or Attunement+Aura of Restoration/Elemental Lord). This is because almost all skills are priced with the attunement in mind. Energy Boon was recently changed, but even like before... if you're devoting an elite to energy management your normal skills better be fantastic. Energy Boon does have the advantage of energy fueling piss-poor PUG monks that use UA though (Necro "battery" is still alive, ha).

Energy pool is NOT energy management unless your idea of playing is sitting in between every single mob waiting for energy to regenerate.

The best general use build for all casters is an AP build. This is 100% unquestionable. Elementalists run them OK, though not the best. Necros get MoP, Assassins/Mesmers can arcane echo. Ele stands up decently well with stuff like MS though.